


Downcard

by Mendax



Series: Wings Over Aces [3]
Category: Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: M/M, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-02
Updated: 2011-01-02
Packaged: 2017-10-14 08:33:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/147369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mendax/pseuds/Mendax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a continuation of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/135430">...Over Aces</a>, the wingfic randi2204 wrote as part of her cliché bingo card. Starts the morning after the end of "...Over Aces".</p>
    </blockquote>





	Downcard

**Author's Note:**

> This is a continuation of [...Over Aces](http://archiveofourown.org/works/135430), the wingfic randi2204 wrote as part of her cliché bingo card. Starts the morning after the end of "...Over Aces".

  
  
  


  
  
Ezra woke up alone, hazily surprised he hadn't woken when Chris left. But then, it had been a...

He frowned and rolled his shoulders. There was no pain, and he breathed a sigh of relief and resettled himself, letting his eyes drift closed once more. He hoped he might be able to fall back to sleep, at least enough to recapture that mad, enticing dream. But despite being comfortable for only the second time in days, it seemed he was awake now. He thought back over the dream, the vision of those black wings sprouting from Chris’s shoulders, the pain of his own....

He could not delineate the separation of last night and the dream. He sat up to clear his head and looked around his room. Chris _had_ been here: Ezra’s waistcoat lay in a crumpled heap in front of the closet, and the rest of his garments were on the floor by the bed. Ezra remembered that part quite clearly; the problem was, he remembered the impossible rest with the same clarity. It was with a feeling of strange presentiment that he turned his head and saw the gleaming black feather on the pillow.

That morning he cut himself shaving; his hands shook for the first time in memory.

He dressed with extra care, flinching back from the red jacket in his closet and choosing the blue instead. The saloon looked as it always did; he almost felt as if there should have been some change in the rest of the world. Buck sprawled at a table polishing off the last of what Ezra knew would have been an abundant plate of breakfast, keeping a jaundiced eye on a couple of Mexican cowboys who stood at the corner of the bar flirting with Inez in Spanish. It was all perfectly normal.

Crossing the street to the restaurant, he thought, _Buck has wings_. Buck. Lanky, affectionate, irrepressible Buck. And Buck _knew_ he had wings, yet sat at the saloon as if nothing had changed. They all had. And suddenly that bothered Ezra more than any of the rest of it. That he hadn’t known something of this magnitude. He hadn’t been able to tell there had been a secret; not even from JD. Chris had _kept_ it from him, though he could at least attribute Chris’s motives to kindness on his behalf.

Wait. Josiah. He had noticed Josiah’s mood shift to something darker than his wont a month or two back, and had immediately decided that where Josiah’s moods were concerned, discretion was emphatically the better part of valor. And Nathan had perhaps seemed distant.... In thinking of it, Ezra could come up with a number of indications that he had simply paid no heed to.

He’d become too complacent with these men. Too accepting.

He knew it was true, yet his mind shied from the thought, rejected it. He frowned and pushed his recently served breakfast around on the plate without eating. The answer arrived slowly, but inexorably. It was still difficult, at times, to acknowledge such things. He could _afford_ to be complacent with these men. They had kept something from him — something so significant that he still could not comprehend it — and yet, there was no harm to him in their having done so, while there may have been harm otherwise. After all, what if Chris’s faith in him _had_ been misplaced? He, himself, often believed it was. Chris’s faith in him ... that heavy, almost tangible thing that was part burden, part salvation, that he treasured and feared in equal measure.

He bit off a corner of toast savagely. This much introspection could not be good for a man before breakfast.

*****

Two days passed in which he observed, and thought, and scowled whenever he caught Chris knowingly, covertly watching him, which only seemed to amuse the man, damn him. Chris hadn’t told the others; that was as obvious now as that they were all hiding something from him should have been all along. As obvious as the sense of _waiting_ coming from them. Buck especially. It set Ezra’s nerves on edge.

The second night, alone in his room well into the night, with the only light that which came through the window from the street fires outside, he stripped to the waist and stood in the middle of the floor. He shivered, though he could not say whether it was from the chill of the night air or the memory of pain like knives, like fire.

 _Won’t ever hurt like that again_. He remembered Chris’s promise, could almost feel the reassuring heat of his hands. He bowed his head, closed his eyes and thought of wings unfurling from his back.

It didn’t hurt. It felt like ... awakening. The shiver this time, he knew, had nothing to do with the cold. He took a deep, steady breath and carefully flexed new muscles. He tested, so far as he could in the limited space, the motion of his wings; discovered just how fine his control was, how much latent power waited on his will. The long, red-tipped feathers whispered and rustled with movement, and spoke of ... temptations.

The next morning, he gave up on pretending to sleep and made his way downstairs far earlier than his usual time. Buck was in the saloon again, this time drinking coffee with Nathan and JD. He straightened as Ezra entered, and there it was again, that damned sense of watching. Ezra winced. How had he missed it for so long?

“Mornin’ Ezra,” Buck called. “Somethin’ going on? Ain’t like you to be about so early.”

Ezra managed to not roll his eyes at the lack of subtlety. Really, it was almost painful. He stifled a smile. “Mr. Wilmington,” he greeted, then grimaced and rolled his shoulders. “No, I simply had some difficulty sleeping last night.”

All three were looking at him with interest now, though Nathan managed to hide it better than the other two. “Back troublin’ you?” he asked. Bless him, he even almost managed to make it sound casual.

Ezra adopted a surprised expression, as if he’d not expected Nathan to notice his discomfort. “Nothing of significance,” he said airily, and tipped his hat to them as he prepared to leave, making the gesture a little stilted.

“You come see me if it gets worse,” Nathan said.

He sounded so sincerely concerned Ezra almost felt a pang of guilt. Almost. Safely on the street, he allowed himself a smug grin as he mentally laid odds on how long he could string them along. If he were to be made the object of speculation among his companions, it would at least be on his terms.

His amusement lasted until he saw the dark-clad figure sitting in front of the jail reading the Clarion. He hesitated for a brief moment, then made his way over.

A surprised blink was Chris’s only commentary on the earliness of his appearance. “Ezra.”

“Mr. Larabee.” Ezra leaned against the jail doorway, casting his eye down the street, which fairly bustled with honest labor and the energy of a new day. He hadn’t so much as spoken to Chris aside from formalities since three nights ago. He knew Chris was waiting for it though, letting him work through what he could on his own and broach the subject in his own time. He gathered up his courage and pitched his voice low though it was clear there was no one within earshot. “Chris ... can we ...”

It was hard to ask. It was a foolish question no matter what the answer was. Impossible that the awkward, heavy, ungainly human form could ... and yet, he had felt the strength, the potential even in the cramped confines of his room. And why would they have been given wings if they could not fly?

 _Been given_. He suppressed a quick shiver.

He hadn’t finished the question, but Chris flashed him a brief, wicked grin and winked at him. Ezra was suddenly very glad he was leaning against a solid building.

Chris set the newspaper aside, gazed out to the northeast edge of town and spoke in his normal tone of voice as Mr. Gustafson walked briskly past. “Figure I’ll ride out toward Deacon’s Folly today, see how things’re going with the Maddocks and that new family that bought the spread out past Taylor’s place.”

“You know, I believe I could use a change of scenery myself, if you would not object to the company.”

Chris pushed his way up out of the chair. “Don’t object. Leavin’ in fifteen minutes though, with or without ya.”

“Twenty,” Ezra replied. “I’ve not yet had my coffee.”

“Best hurry then. Fifteen.”

Twenty-five minutes later, Ezra’s horse cantered up next to Chris’s some distance from town. Ezra gave him a sour look, but Chris just grinned.

They set a fairly aggressive pace, but it didn’t feel nearly fast enough for Ezra. Of course, they had to stop at the Maddocks’ and the Daniels’ for verisimilitude. And actual duty, Ezra supposed. Mrs. Daniels insisted that they have some lunch, during which they — especially Chris, with that flashy, dangerous-looking rig of his — were gawked at by the family’s three young children. Ezra chafed at the delay, but it was still not long after noon when they finally reached the pass that led to Deacon’s Folly. They picked their way down into the valley, the cliffs rising higher on each side, until the wide, deep box canyon opened up on all sides of them.

“You’ve been awful quiet,” Chris said. They’d untacked and hobbled their horses, leaving them to feed on dry grass.

“And you’re calling attention to the fact rather than raising a prayer of gratitude? How singular.”

Chris didn’t even crack a smile at the feeble attempt, just looked at him. Ezra sighed.

“I confess, I find all of this ... disquieting. I have never ascribed to Josiah’s notions of destiny, and the idea that we have been ... brought together, have been ....” He trailed off.

“Even if there is somethin’ behind it all, I figure a man makes his own choices. I sure’s hell have never known _you_ to go where you were led.”

Ezra’s lips pulled down at the corners when he tried to make them go the other way, and Chris stepped in close to him, brushed the back of his hand along Ezra’s cheek.

“Besides, it ain’t been all bad so far, has it?”

Ezra had given him part of it, but he was more troubled by the part he was _not_ telling Chris. About all those ... possibilities. About the way he couldn’t keep his own thoughts from running. He wished he could take Chris’s statement about a man making his own choices as the reassurance it was intended rather than an ominous echo of his own fears. Still, he managed a small smile, answered Chris’s low voice with an insinuating glance of his own. “I admit, there has been some worthwhile recompense.”

One corner of Chris’s mouth curved up wickedly. His hand slid down to Ezra’s chin, which he lifted slightly as if in preparation for a kiss. But instead he just met his eyes with a look of banked fire and let his thumb drift briefly across Ezra’s lower lip. “There’s about to be another one,” he promised.

With that he stepped back and pulled the duster off his shoulders, letting it fall unheeded to the ground behind him. His hat followed. He unbuttoned the cuffs of his sleeves and started on his shirtfront, loose-limbed and easy, grinning at Ezra all the while.

“This don’t work so well with your jacket on, Ezra,” he said teasingly.

Ezra licked his lips and swallowed. “If it’s all the same to you, I would prefer to ... watch, first.”

Chris gave him a bit of a look at that, but didn’t push it any, and soon he was pulling his shirt off, and his undershirt after that, and dear God but his skin was made for sunshine. Ezra had admired it often, locked away in the privacy of their rooms — the contours over lean, hard muscle, deep shadows dancing complicated steps with flickering light. The way an open flame would pull gold from it and moonlight would turn it into a cool mystery. The way a brightly burning lamp would expose its secrets: the fine scars and lines that spoke of his survival. But in the sunshine....

Then Chris unfurled his wings.

Even in his room, in the feeble light of a lamp, he had been able to tell that this was an opalescent black unlike any he’d seen. The closest he had experienced was a piece of uncut obsidian, but even in that remarkable stone there had been flaws; spots of dullness or impurity, a flatness to the color marring its glass-like sheen. Not so this. Chris’s wings in the sunlight gleamed black with a depth that nearly blinded in its brilliance. The sun tangled in them, pulling out reflections of deep indigo and veridian that shifted with each movement like will-o’-the-wisps.

He was moving before he thought, drawing closer. He barely registered the amused — and perhaps pleased — expression on Chris’s face, though normally Ezra would have been embarrassed to be caught gawking so openly. The long, trailing flight feathers were so sharply defined Ezra felt as if touching one would be akin to touching a razor: He would be bleeding before he so much as felt the pain.

He reached forward, but stopped at Chris’s slight flinch. Instantly his eyes flew to Chris’s, accusing. “You told me it didn’t hurt.”

“It don’t,” Chris said. “It’s … ah hell.” He scowled, then grabbed Ezra’s still-raised hand at the wrist, drew it forward while sweeping one massive black wing toward it with a sound like the rustle of dozens of silk gowns.

Ezra’s fingers curled into the shorter, rounded feathers just past Chris’s shoulder. Chris’s nostrils flared as he pulled in a sharp breath, and the expression in his eyes was…

“It doesn’t hurt,” Chris said quietly, and Ezra could only nod. He flicked his tongue out to wet dry lips and stroked his hand down, feeling the dense, stiff feathers, watching those fascinating colors give way to his touch and then shimmer back to life, beautiful and elusive.

Reluctantly, Ezra pulled his hand back and stepped away. “Show me,” he said.

Chris nodded and shook his wings. He took a deep breath and turned away, giving Ezra a magnificent view as his wings stretched out wide from his naked back and lifted. One long stride, then another, and another, and he leapt into the air.

The downsweep of his wings thundered like a gunshot. Ezra heard the startled whinnies of the horses, and a moment later was enveloped in a choking cloud of dust. He tucked his nose into the crook of his elbow and darted into the clear air. By the time he looked up again, Chris was already at the far end of the canyon, near the lip of the cliff, what had to be two hundred feet up. Ezra felt a rush of vertigo at the sheer _impossibility_ of what he was seeing.

A steep bank, wings outspread and nearly perpendicular to the ground, and Chris was headed back toward him. One almost lazy seeming downstroke, and then his wings simply extended, holding him aloft as he spiraled higher before tucking in closer to his body for a graceful swoop. It was beautiful. Ezra blinked several times, rapidly, grateful for the excuse of the dust in the air.

All too soon, Chris wheeled slowly in the air and came back down, alighting some feet from Ezra and immediately meeting his eyes with an exuberant smile, eyes dancing and skin flushed with wind or exertion. Ezra wasn’t sure which, but that did not stop him from appreciating the effect.

“Landing’s the tough part,” Chris confided. “First time I ended up flat on my ass.”

“How reassuring,” Ezra said dryly.

His fingers twitched with the urge to touch, to cross the space between them, bury his hands in that lank, tumbled hair and lick the taste of the wind from Chris’s lips. But something restrained him, made him reply so distantly. One corner of Chris’s mouth turned up wryly, and he ran both hands through his hair, pushing it into its usual disheveled order as his wings tucked in and then seemed to just disappear. Ezra did not regret their loss.

“Seen enough?” Chris prodded.

In answer, Ezra raised his chin and removed his hat, turning and walking a few yards to place it on a nearby flat rock. He slid his jacket off his shoulders and shook the dust from it before folding it carefully and laying it out. From the corner of his eye he could see Chris watching him, body loose and relaxed, eyes creased against the sun and a hint of a smile playing around his mouth. The cravat pin was next, then his cuff links, tucked carefully into the pocket of his waistcoat. His gun belt followed.

Halfway through the second row of buttons on his waistcoat, he managed to glance across at Chris with a lopsided smile that he hoped did not convey his nerves. He knew he was acting oddly. He trusted Chris to continue with the quiet patience he’d shown since all this started; the same kind of patience he gave to a half-broke horse or a wild kid wavering between the call of his heart and the last mistake of his life. That strange trust, giving you room to go in the right direction, but absolutely prepared for what he’d have to do if you didn’t.

What _would_ he do, Ezra wondered.

He slid the cravat from around his neck. The waistcoat was folded and laid atop his jacket. He heard the jingle of approaching spurs and straightened, turning to face him. Chris came right into his space. He rested his fingertips for a brief moment at the hollow of Ezra’s throat, and Ezra could feel his own pulse thrumming under the slight pressure before it was taken away and Chris’s square, capable fingers slid free the top button of his shirt, then trailed lightly down his chest to the next one.

Eventually all of the fussy, small buttons were free, and Chris gently pulled his shirttails loose before sliding both hands across Ezra’s chest and up to his shoulders, palms broad and rough, warm against Ezra’s skin, sliding his shirt off and tossing it casually onto the pile of otherwise carefully folded garments.

He grinned at Ezra’s reproachful look, then winked. “You’re gonna like this,” he promised.

Ezra could hardly tell him that that was exactly what he was afraid of, so he simply nodded in response and took a deep breath. Calling his wings forth felt good, like stretching loose, sleep-relaxed muscles first thing in the morning. The breeze felt like a caress, and it was difficult to fight the prick of eagerness that curled up from his belly.

Chris had taken a step back and was eyeing him in open appreciation. Ezra arched his wings, unable to resist flaunting what was so clearly admired and perhaps getting a bit of his own back for his equally transparent reaction to Chris.

“Damn, Ezra,” Chris breathed, “Pretty ain’t the right word, but…”

“Exquisite?” Ezra suggested, lifting his eyebrows. “Dazzling? Gorgeous, striking, breathtaking?”

Chris fought back a smile valiantly, but couldn’t suppress it entirely. “All right then,” he said, shaking his head. “Try ‘em out.”

Ezra flashed him a cocky grin. His hesitation was gone, swept away in the clean pounding of his heart and the heady promise of it — he had barely allowed himself to think the word — of _flight_. He lifted his wings, took a step, and leapt.

It was as natural as breathing, as intuitive as the turn of cards in his hands, as exhilarating as being among those still standing when the bullet stopped flying. The ground dropped away at a dizzying rate, and he was at the canyon rim faster than he thought possible, at once buffeted and enveloped by the wind, an unpredictable and near living force to be reckoned with — and used.

He set about pushing at it. Following its currents, then fighting them, the flush of triumph as he managed a brief, controlled hover, the heart-stopping thrill of plummeting toward the ground. But above all the call of the open sky; he chafed already at the limitations of the canyon, yearned to give in to the unholy pull of that kind of freedom.

He stumbled as he touched the ground once more, but caught himself, muscles trembling in exhilarated exhaustion. Chris was already striding toward him, and Ezra met him halfway. Met him in a hungry, enflamed, demanding kiss, hands clutching at narrow hips and pulling them close, shoving against him, trusting his strength and the support of that muscular, wiry arm banded around his waist.

Chris pushed right back, his other hand buried in Ezra’s hair, holding him in place to be savaged by that forceful, inelegant kiss. Ezra nipped at him, and Chris pulled back enough to lower his head and bite at the juncture of Ezra’s shoulder, just hard enough to be exciting. “Gorgeous,” he breathed into Ezra’s skin, then tugged his head back and kissed underneath his jaw. “Breathtaking.”

Ezra recognized the words now, and a little laugh escaped him.

“Reckless,” Chris continued with a growl, his hold tightening.

Ezra rolled his hips against Chris deliberately. “You like it when I’m reckless,” he murmured in a thickened drawl, just to feel Chris shudder. And because it was true.

Chris stepped back, eyeing him steadily. Ezra touched the tip of his tongue to his lips, let his eyes drift insinuatingly down Chris’s naked torso, linger a bit lower than that. Like this. Reckless.

“Turn around,” Chris said roughly. His hands went to his gun belt; leather slid through the silver buckle.

Ezra held his eyes for a long moment before he complied, holding his wings tight against his body while he turned, then spreading them wide, on display and vulnerable. He watched as Chris’s shadow, stretched long in the afternoon sun, carefully set his rig on the ground and drew close.

His hand was warm between Ezra’s shoulders, soothing well-worked muscles. It stroked slowly down and was matched by the other where Ezra’s wings joined his body. Then they slid up into his wings, and Ezra gasped, his whole body arching back into that touch.

“Yeah,” Chris murmured into his ear. “It’s somethin’, ain’t it?”

He stepped closer then, pressing his body against Ezra’s back, his chest against the downy juncture feathers, the line of his prick hard against Ezra’s ass. One hand continued stroking a wing with maddening, electrifying pleasure; the other reached around his hip to cup him, squeezing lightly.

“Help me out here,” he gritted.

Ezra’s hands flew to the buttons of his trousers. Despite how little presence of mind remained, it took next to no time to bare himself to the open air and Chris’s calloused hand.

The sun beat down on their entwined, sweating forms, Ezra’s wings shifting and fluttering, mingled pleasured gasps and moans as they writhed together, fucking blindly and aggressively until Chris jerked against him, his hand flexing convulsively and pulling Ezra’s completion from him, thick and white on the hard-baked reddish earth.

He came back to himself slowly, with gentle, close-lipped kisses pressed to the back of his bowed neck and the light, somewhat sticky caress of Chris’s fingers along his twitching, softening cock. Ezra drew a deep breath and straightened, tucking himself away as Chris released him, buttoning his drawers and trousers. Chris stepped back, clear of Ezra’s wings, which were slowly half-beating, stirring up little eddies of dust on the ground.

Ezra thought them away, feeling a final quiver in the new, hard-used muscle and the echo of the extraordinary feeling of Chris’s hands on them. He turned, ready to offer … and saw Chris already buckling his gun back into place, a conspicuous darker mark below his waistband.

Chris caught his look and shrugged with easy, chagrined amusement. “Ain’t had that happen in years,” he said.

Ezra startled himself by laughing. He drew close to Chris. “I’m not sure whether I should feel flattered or cheated out of the pleasure of playing a more … participatory role. I may demand recompense in the near future.”

Chris’s eyes darkened. “I think we could work somethin’ out.”

He leaned forward, claimed Ezra’s lips in a brief but intense kiss, then turned and strode toward his pile of clothing. Ezra did the same, each article a weight. The fineness of his shirt was an annoyance. The brocade vest and silk cravat, the jeweled pin and flash of cufflinks, his adopted plumage. The gun belt a comfortable tether. But his coat settled on his shoulders with the weight of doubt.

Chris was waiting for him when he finished. Watching. Watchful.

Ezra smiled widely and donned his hat, running his finger along the brim in a flamboyant, suggestive salute. “Shall we, Mr. Larabee?”

He could feel Chris’s eyes on his back as he headed to where they’d tethered the horses, but he didn’t have any answers for him. He didn’t have answers for himself. Flight. It was more than he could have imagined.

He was tightening the cinch, following easily as his gelding tried — predictably, as always — to sidestep the pressure, when Chris walked up, leading his horse. He was about to lift his foot to the stirrup when Chris’s voice behind him made him stop.

“Ezra. It don’t change anything.”

Ezra dropped his head. He should have known. Chris always had seen right through him.

“Doesn’t it?” he asked, voice low. He hoped he was the only one who could detect the note of pleading in it, but he wouldn’t have taken the bet.

There was a long quiet, and Ezra dared a sidelong glance only to find that Chris was facing away from him, looking back toward the canyon. “Got the same choices you’ve always had,” Chris said finally.

There was no surety there, just the sort of grim acceptance with which Chris faced most of life. He swung into the saddle and put his heels to his horse’s sides, leaving Ezra to stare after him.

Chris was right. He could fly. It didn’t mean he had to fly away.

All those whispered, rustling temptations crumbled. He knew himself too well to think they would stay gone, but he also knew that where Chris was involved, there was no choice at all. He scrambled up onto his horse and caught Chris just before the pass narrowed, riding so close their legs brushed. Chris looked over at him, and must have seen it in his face. That slow smile felt like flying.

  
**Entry tags:**   
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[fic](http://mendax.dreamwidth.org/tag/fic), [mag7](http://mendax.dreamwidth.org/tag/mag7)  
  
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